<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Got freebies and good life woh! Speak no Engrish also allowed to enrol in NUAss!
Doing my best as an immigrant, just like table tennis trio
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Zheng Wei
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I remember the evening in early 2003 when I became a Singapore citizen. I was among some 20 other new citizens gathered at the West Coast Community Centre.
In a simple ceremony, Mr Arthur Fong, Member of Parliament for West Coast GRC, presented each of us our new pink identity cards. Afterwards, we sang Majulah Singapura and recited the national pledge.
And then it was over. I was no longer a Chinese citizen. At the time, I had been in Singapore for 10 years.
I grew up in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province. My father is a retired army officer and my mother, a doctor. Together with my older sister, who would become a teacher later, we lived in a spacious four-bedroom apartment. We were comfortable. I had a room to myself.
In 1991, I finished among the top 20 candidates in Fuzhou in the college entrance examinations. With my results, I could apply for the prestigious Peking University but I preferred a university nearer home. I was offered a place in Hwa Qiao University in Quanzhou, which is an hour away by car from Fuzhou. I also applied to an American university.
But as fate would have it, the Singapore Ministry of Education's Exchange Programme offered me a place in the National University of Singapore (NUS) on a Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) scholarship. With typical Singapore efficiency, in two weeks, all the paperwork was done. Meanwhile, I had yet to hear from the American university. I decided to go to Singapore, with my parents' blessings.
It was 1992, I was 18, and it was my first trip out of China. My first impression of Singapore was that it reminded me of the Fujian coastal port of Xiamen, especially the shophouses with the five-foot-way and the Hokkien dialect which I heard people speaking on the streets.
Unlike my peers who all went into the sciences, I enrolled in the arts and social sciences faculty at NUS, majoring in economics and statistics. If I am not wrong, I was the first Chinese national on scholarship who did not join the science stream.
I had no working knowledge of English and had to learn it from scratch. There was a short English proficiency course that I attended, but mainly I studied it on my own. That I was the only Chinese national in my class helped too, for it meant that I had to interact with the Singaporean students and was forced to speak English. It was a total immersion in the language for me, and I am grateful for it.
I graduated with a first-class degree in economics. In 1997, I joined the Chinese morning daily Lianhe Zaobao, which is part of SPH, as a financial reporter. The following year, I was successful in my application to become a permanent resident. That year too, I married my university sweetheart, who is a Singaporean.
We moved into a four-room HDB flat in Clementi. It is much smaller than my parents' apartment in Fuzhou, but it is my first home and I am proud of it. During my four years in university, I stayed in the hostel and rented a room in Clementi during my final year. My wife works as a logistics executive and we have two children, aged five and two.
My career was going well. In 2000, I was made the content manager for Zaobao Online. Three years later, I was promoted to become the portal's editor, a job which I still hold and cherish.
It was in late 2002 that the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority sent me a letter to welcome me to become a Singapore citizen. I had to decide whether I wanted to take it up or remain comfortably as a PR.
The Chinese education system drills you in patriotism. We were also told countless stories of Chinese abroad who made good but who chose to return to contribute to their homeland.
So it was not an easy decision for me to make. But at the end of the day, I asked myself: 'Is Singapore a place you will want to live in for a long time?' The answer was yes.
The key thing for me was whether I accepted Singapore's values of meritocracy, hard work, honesty and transparency. I did.
And so I made my decision. My wife and my parents were supportive of the choice I was going to make. I seldom return to Fuzhou, but my parents visit us here regularly, so it was not like I just conveyed my decision to them on the phone.
When I received my pink IC at West Coast Community Centre, I was looking forward, and I did not feel any sense of loss in giving up my Chinese citizenship.
People asked me: 'Now that China has become such an economic powerhouse, why did you not want to return to seize opportunities there?'
Yes, there are plenty of success stories. But you have to be in business and you have to have guanxi, or connections. It is not exactly a level playing field there like it is here, where if you work hard, you are recognised and duly rewarded.
Do I get flak from my Chinese friends for being a 'turncoat'? No, the Chinese people are more relaxed in recent years about their people crossing over to other countries. At the Olympics, for example, the largely Chinese crowd applauded Lang Ping, a former Chinese national who is now the coach of the United States volleyball team, each time she entered the stadium.
I know some Singaporeans do not have a good impression of Chinese nationals. But the negative stereotype is mainly of the women, because of the number of Chinese women in Geylang and karaoke lounges. At my level, people do not tell you their feelings to your face, but I can sometimes detect negative vibes. Then it is up to me to be humble and to correct their first impression of me by the way I conduct myself.
Many Chinese nationals have moved into hawker centres and coffee shops. I think if their food is not up to the mark, then Singaporeans will not patronise them. Others have taken up low-level jobs that Singaporeans shun. So it is not a matter of them snatching away the rice bowls of the locals.
But some Singaporeans are understandably perturbed by the large influx of foreigners, including Chinese nationals, and only time will make it less of an emotional issue.
I am proud of my Chinese heritage but I have no conflicted loyalties. When the Singapore table tennis team played against China last Monday, I could see the Chinese team's dominance but I was moved by how hard the Singapore side played. The three players are new immigrants like me, and I could identify with them, not the Chinese paddlers.
It has been 16 years since I first arrived in Singapore, five years since I became a citizen. I have much to thank my adopted country for and I want to contribute to it as best as I can.
The writer is the editor of Zaobao Online, the Internet portal of Lianhe Zaobao, the Chinese-language morning daily. [email protected]
Doing my best as an immigrant, just like table tennis trio
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Zheng Wei
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I remember the evening in early 2003 when I became a Singapore citizen. I was among some 20 other new citizens gathered at the West Coast Community Centre.
In a simple ceremony, Mr Arthur Fong, Member of Parliament for West Coast GRC, presented each of us our new pink identity cards. Afterwards, we sang Majulah Singapura and recited the national pledge.
And then it was over. I was no longer a Chinese citizen. At the time, I had been in Singapore for 10 years.
I grew up in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province. My father is a retired army officer and my mother, a doctor. Together with my older sister, who would become a teacher later, we lived in a spacious four-bedroom apartment. We were comfortable. I had a room to myself.
In 1991, I finished among the top 20 candidates in Fuzhou in the college entrance examinations. With my results, I could apply for the prestigious Peking University but I preferred a university nearer home. I was offered a place in Hwa Qiao University in Quanzhou, which is an hour away by car from Fuzhou. I also applied to an American university.
But as fate would have it, the Singapore Ministry of Education's Exchange Programme offered me a place in the National University of Singapore (NUS) on a Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) scholarship. With typical Singapore efficiency, in two weeks, all the paperwork was done. Meanwhile, I had yet to hear from the American university. I decided to go to Singapore, with my parents' blessings.
It was 1992, I was 18, and it was my first trip out of China. My first impression of Singapore was that it reminded me of the Fujian coastal port of Xiamen, especially the shophouses with the five-foot-way and the Hokkien dialect which I heard people speaking on the streets.
Unlike my peers who all went into the sciences, I enrolled in the arts and social sciences faculty at NUS, majoring in economics and statistics. If I am not wrong, I was the first Chinese national on scholarship who did not join the science stream.
I had no working knowledge of English and had to learn it from scratch. There was a short English proficiency course that I attended, but mainly I studied it on my own. That I was the only Chinese national in my class helped too, for it meant that I had to interact with the Singaporean students and was forced to speak English. It was a total immersion in the language for me, and I am grateful for it.
I graduated with a first-class degree in economics. In 1997, I joined the Chinese morning daily Lianhe Zaobao, which is part of SPH, as a financial reporter. The following year, I was successful in my application to become a permanent resident. That year too, I married my university sweetheart, who is a Singaporean.
We moved into a four-room HDB flat in Clementi. It is much smaller than my parents' apartment in Fuzhou, but it is my first home and I am proud of it. During my four years in university, I stayed in the hostel and rented a room in Clementi during my final year. My wife works as a logistics executive and we have two children, aged five and two.
My career was going well. In 2000, I was made the content manager for Zaobao Online. Three years later, I was promoted to become the portal's editor, a job which I still hold and cherish.
It was in late 2002 that the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority sent me a letter to welcome me to become a Singapore citizen. I had to decide whether I wanted to take it up or remain comfortably as a PR.
The Chinese education system drills you in patriotism. We were also told countless stories of Chinese abroad who made good but who chose to return to contribute to their homeland.
So it was not an easy decision for me to make. But at the end of the day, I asked myself: 'Is Singapore a place you will want to live in for a long time?' The answer was yes.
The key thing for me was whether I accepted Singapore's values of meritocracy, hard work, honesty and transparency. I did.
And so I made my decision. My wife and my parents were supportive of the choice I was going to make. I seldom return to Fuzhou, but my parents visit us here regularly, so it was not like I just conveyed my decision to them on the phone.
When I received my pink IC at West Coast Community Centre, I was looking forward, and I did not feel any sense of loss in giving up my Chinese citizenship.
People asked me: 'Now that China has become such an economic powerhouse, why did you not want to return to seize opportunities there?'
Yes, there are plenty of success stories. But you have to be in business and you have to have guanxi, or connections. It is not exactly a level playing field there like it is here, where if you work hard, you are recognised and duly rewarded.
Do I get flak from my Chinese friends for being a 'turncoat'? No, the Chinese people are more relaxed in recent years about their people crossing over to other countries. At the Olympics, for example, the largely Chinese crowd applauded Lang Ping, a former Chinese national who is now the coach of the United States volleyball team, each time she entered the stadium.
I know some Singaporeans do not have a good impression of Chinese nationals. But the negative stereotype is mainly of the women, because of the number of Chinese women in Geylang and karaoke lounges. At my level, people do not tell you their feelings to your face, but I can sometimes detect negative vibes. Then it is up to me to be humble and to correct their first impression of me by the way I conduct myself.
Many Chinese nationals have moved into hawker centres and coffee shops. I think if their food is not up to the mark, then Singaporeans will not patronise them. Others have taken up low-level jobs that Singaporeans shun. So it is not a matter of them snatching away the rice bowls of the locals.
But some Singaporeans are understandably perturbed by the large influx of foreigners, including Chinese nationals, and only time will make it less of an emotional issue.
I am proud of my Chinese heritage but I have no conflicted loyalties. When the Singapore table tennis team played against China last Monday, I could see the Chinese team's dominance but I was moved by how hard the Singapore side played. The three players are new immigrants like me, and I could identify with them, not the Chinese paddlers.
It has been 16 years since I first arrived in Singapore, five years since I became a citizen. I have much to thank my adopted country for and I want to contribute to it as best as I can.
The writer is the editor of Zaobao Online, the Internet portal of Lianhe Zaobao, the Chinese-language morning daily. [email protected]
